ASUN Conference baseball tournament has two games canceled; Stetson coach talks Austin Peay dustup

The ASUN Conference released a social media statement late on Thursday night announcing the cancellation of two of the three baseball tournament games originally scheduled for Friday.

Austin Peay was set to meet Kennesaw State Friday morning with Stetson scheduled to play Florida Gulf Coast afterward. The two contests were slated to conclude play in Pool A.

However, Austin Peay was mathematically eliminated from advancing to the league semifinals after a 5-3 loss to Stetson on Thursday afternoon. With Stetson and FGCU both 1-1 in pool play entering Friday, the two were locked into the 2 and 3 seeds in the semifinals and were already guaranteed to play on Saturday regardless of what may have happened in Friday's game.

With neither game carrying any ramifications, the decision was made to scratch them both.

Thursday afternoon's contest between Stetson and APSU featured a chaotic ending after Governors coach Roland Fanning and Hatters skipper Steve Trimper were involved in a heated postgame conversation. Fanning slapped Trimper's hands off of his chest and both bullpens and benches cleared, though no further physical altercations occurred.

The incident followed a snarky Twitter exchange in which Trimper seemed to poke fun at his conference foes after the Governors' Twitter handle released a tweet proclaiming the team as regular-season conference champs. The next day, the ASUN proclaimed Austin Peay, Stetson and FGCU as co-champions.

ASUN TOURNAMENT: Stetson and Austin Peay baseball coaches have fiery argument

Trimper said the he and his team had put the incident behind them as of Thursday night.

"Right now, honestly, I'm focused on this team," he said. "We had a great win today. It was a really well played ball game that helped our RPI. I think our only way to get into the tournament is to win the conference, but if we get a few more wins, it could maybe allow us to think about getting up to the 3-seed (in NCAA regionals)."

"It's unfortunate that things got heated at the end because it took away from a really good ball game."

Central Arkansas will play Jacksonville at 7 p.m. on Friday night to determine the Pool B winner, which will earn the No. 4 seed in the semifinals and will take on Kennesaw State at 11 a.m. on Saturday. The Owls earned victories over Stetson and FGCU in pool play to clinch the top seed.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: College baseball: ASUN cancels two tourney games to finish pool play